Way back when I was in grammar school there were plenty of guns around, but we had no school shootings. What has changed?

Today, my wife and I both own firearms, as do relatives and friends — some even have AR-15s. To my knowledge, none of these firearms has ever been used outside of a licensed shooting range. Nonetheless, based on what I have read in your newspaper, some people believe that the firearms legitimately owned by me, my relatives and friends should be confiscated because some mentally unstable individual, about whom various law enforcement authorities were warned numerous times (but disregarded the warnings), committed an atrocity by killing and wounding students at a school in Florida.

Reports have surfaced that armed law enforcement officers were at the scene of the shooting, but did little or nothing to stop it. Also, it seems the county and school district where this occurred were complicit in disregarding and under-reporting school crime in order to be eligible for grant money payable for reduced crime activity.

If all of this is true, it seems that there is plenty to consider here before suggesting that we take away lawfully-owned firearms from U.S. citizens.

Mike Mack, Cathedral City

Safety in a police state

Video clips show French soldiers patrolling Jewish schools in France. This is because there have been attacks on these schools, and the French have a zero-tolerance policy about protecting their children.

No one argues against making schools safer, but arming teacher volunteers is, as local educators point out, the least-effective way to protect our children.

If the federal government is serious about securing our schools, they will have to call upon the Army and the state National Guards to provide professional protection.

It is ironic that our government needs to protect us from unstable people out to kill, rather than the belief of the pro-gun people who say they need guns to protect themselves from the federal government. Nor should it be lost that patrolling schools and other vulnerable places with the military will turn America into a police state.

But that’s what we get for having more guns in America than people, as some estimates indicate.

Larry Shapiro, Rancho Mirage

Teachers need funds, not guns

Bravo to Coachella Valley Teachers Association President Carissa Carrera for stating what is really needed to quell the wave of violence in schools – better funding for classroom teachers, reduction in student/teacher ratios and more counselors. (“Local educators reject idea of arming teachers,” March 1)

As a veteran high school teacher with 20 years of experience, three teacher of the year awards and many years as a mentor, I was permanently disabled by a single sucker punch in a school hallway after a fight between students was already over at Summit High School in 2012 by a student with a long history of violent behavior. The district did not, at that time, follow state law and inform me of the student’s previous violent behaviors, and only started to do so after I went public with the help of my union and forced the issue.

This horrible outcome could have been worse if I had a gun that day. The student, in the heat of anger, could possibly have overpowered me and grabbed the weapon, using a bullet instead of his fist.

Don’t throw fuel on the fire by adding weapons to the mix in troubled schools.

I think Mueller's business background and his love for wanting to move Rancho Mirage in a direction that is more citizen- and visitor/tourist-friendly make him qualified.

I keep wondering how Rancho Mirage will develop a plan to address the $60 million-plus surplus in its coffers. And, traffic is fast-moving and dangerous at times for bikers and walkers along Da Vall Drive, where I live. The CV Link will be addressed in Rancho Mirage as soon as a person is killed in Rancho Mirage strolling or biking along Da Vall or another street in our beautiful city.

I think Mueller is open to further discussion on the CV Link or a way to protect bicyclists and runners, unlike some of the incumbents he is running against.

Rob Westwood, Rancho Mirage

$17 million trail goes cold?

I see Congress is not hot on the trail of disclosing where, why, by whom and to whom, and for what, its harassment “slush fund” is or was being used.

As usual, give any political hot potato time and it will go uncovered or conveniently covered up. Leaving it to the congressional ethics committee to investigate is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house; or worse burying it deep into the abyss!

Congressman Raul Ruiz, what are you doing to get to the bottom of this issue? Your constituents are waiting.

Ron Pregmon, Indio

A reader questions the need for having to adjust back and forth between standard and daylight ...more

A reader questions the need for having to adjust back and forth between standard and daylight saving time.

Getty Images

End clock-tinkering ritual

Once again, we are approaching the bi-annual ceremony of moving our clocks back or forth between Savings and Standard Time.

Everyone I know agrees that this obsolete exercise needs to stop, yet we continue to suffer through this ridiculous inconvenience twice a year. Why? Our legislators, both state and federal, are deaf to the voices of the people they are supposed to represent.

Sure, this is a relatively minor matter when compared to everything else that's crying for legislation. But it is a good example of the insensitivity of our politicians towards the people who put them in office.

By the way, the reason our legislators won't act on this matter has nothing to do with farmers or the time school starts.

Rick Fearns, Palm Springs

Incorrigible election meddling

I’ve heard too much discussion about whether Russia has been dabbling in United States elections. How can there be any doubt?

They weren’t always successful or secretive, but just look at the list of countries where they interfered or even sent in military forces to change the pattern of government.

I am sure there are schools all over California with teachers being laid off. I do not think I am far off when I say a vast majority of all cites in California are “broke” and underfunded.

So I ask the question: "Why is this bullet train going forward?"

With all the billions that have been spent and the billions more that are going to be spent, why can't this money be diverted to the schools?

It's not that complicated to do, it just another accounting maneuver. Done all the time, it’s probably why many cities are broke to begin with.

Jim Meyer, La Quinta

Tuning out the Oscars

The 20 percent drop in this year’s Academy Awards viewership, matching a 35-year low, wasn’t tied to the lack of “box office muscle” (as suggested in the March 6 Desert Sun). It was simply because millions of viewers were getting sick and tired of hearing politically laced garbage rather than entertainment content they had expected to watch.

Steve Shamion, Palm Desert

A suggestively evil effect?

When I saw several of the movies that won Academy Awards, what impressed me most was the gun violence in so many previews I had to sit through before the features started. The magnitude, savagery and gratuity of the mass killing portrayed in these other movies must be thought of in the industry as a credit to Hollywood’s “special effects.”

One has to wonder, however, if another special effect of these violent movies that Hollywood has spewed out over the years is to excite and motivate deranged mass killers from Columbine to Parkland.